Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Working Group

With so many factors that drive specialist societies, and society as a whole, towards maintaining a status quo where some groups are overlooked and sidelined, we have made a commitment as a specialist society to work towards ensuring that our membership is diverse and reflects the patient population that we serve. This is reflected in our mission statement.

We have EDI representation on Council so that there is influence at the highest level of our Society. This includes being consulted by subsections such as the Education Committee or Research Committee to ensure policies, communications and surveys do not unknowingly cause distress by alienating certain groups of members or even the wider public.

We are always keen to add to our working group so please reach out to edi@bess.ac.uk and contact us if you would like to contribute.

We are mindful that there are many obstacles to achieving and maintaining a balanced and diverse membership, and this extends to attendance at the Annual Scientific Meeting. For this reason we have taken active steps to try and make it easier for everyone to attend. This includes:

• Parent and Child room – a separate room in the conference venue where parents can sit with with their children without worrying about disrupting the conference, yet still watch via a live video feed into the room*
• Multi-faith prayer room – a quiet room where delegates can come to pray or just have a quiet moment.
• Building in longer breaks – this is designed to allow more mingling so that delegates can find and speak to different groups without being rushed to grab a quick coffee before the next session begins!
• Trainee and early career Consultant breakout sessions – these are sessions during the Annual Scientific Meeting when delegates can come to meet other delegates without feeling shy or that they are being outnumbered in a huge meeting where everyone seems to know everyone else.

There is always so much more to do, so please do let us know what you feel about this issue, and join the working group if you want to help make a difference.